


Sweet Prince

by all_my_fandoms (marina)



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, Kings
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/all_my_fandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Tonight [info]roga and I watched the play Hamlet with an actor who... was so remarkably like Jack, from Kings, we couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the similarities. Both physically and in terms of how he played the character, he really was an alternate version of Jack. This is not really an explanation for anything, but at some point Roga leaned towards me and whispered, <i>I'd really like a Jack/Hamlet crossover...</i> and at that point, I knew I was doomed.</p><p>This relies heavily on the canon of the specific production of Hamlet we atteneded so I don't actually epxect this to make sense to anyone but us.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Sweet Prince

**Author's Note:**

> Tonight [info]roga and I watched the play Hamlet with an actor who... was so remarkably like Jack, from Kings, we couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the similarities. Both physically and in terms of how he played the character, he really was an alternate version of Jack. This is not really an explanation for anything, but at some point Roga leaned towards me and whispered, _I'd really like a Jack/Hamlet crossover..._ and at that point, I knew I was doomed.
> 
> This relies heavily on the canon of the specific production of Hamlet we atteneded so I don't actually epxect this to make sense to anyone but us.

In his dream, Jack watched himself sitting by the fire on a beach, embraced by a male figure he knew to be a kind and calming presence. The sky was gray with clouds, the air chilly, as though before a storm. Jack's twin, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie, leaned closer to his companion and put his arm around the other man's waist.

This was a new dream, but the sentiments were hardly unusual. Jack braced himself for the bittersweet pinch in his chest of watching his own reflection, abandoned by all the world, or perhaps finally left alone, allowed to sink into loving familiarity.

His twin, who'd been sitting with his back to Jack, pulled down the hoodie to reveal… short blond hair? What the _hell_?

*

"If anyone here is modeled after anyone," Jack said irritably. "_You're_ a copy of _me_." And not even a very good one, judging from the quality of the dye job. "You're in _my_ dream."

"Or is it you're in mine?" The other prince – Hamlet, sounded like an omelet – said.

Jack fumed. "Denmark's not even a real country!"

Hamlet sighed. "Perhaps it's not. Perhaps I _am_ just a vision, just part of your dream. Perhaps this is all one sick, cruel joke in the Creator's imagination. All of us just one big, illustrious fiction."

Jack hadn't ever heard anyone talk that way before but… he had to admit he kind of liked it. "Must be an interesting kingdom where you're from. Does the king like you talking about how we're all figments of each other's imaginations?"

Hamlet's eyes suddenly went from being a thousand miles away to staring Jack down with fiery anger. "My _father_ was the most virtuous man who'd ever lived. The scum that's currently on the throne has no brain with which to understand reason nor a soul pure enough to grasp the essence of life."

"Yeah," Jack agreed bitterly. "I know a little something about kings like that."

*

"Wow, so your mom married your uncle like a month after your dad died?" Jack said, suddenly glad that his only uncle was on his mother's side.

Hamlet merely nodded, face overwrought with emotion. "What is the world worth when villains can slay righteous men and take their place as though nothing had happened?" Something glistened at the corners of Hamlet's eyes. "What mad world is this where a healthy man must pretend to be unhinged, commit unnatural acts, twist himself and disguise himself as though his mind and body were not his own, just to achieve what heaven deems as righteous. To see justice served and things put in their right place."

Something about Hamlet's words, his heavy silence and averted gaze… Jack found that his own eyes began to prickle.

They sat in silence for a while, side by side, staring out to sea.

*

"Come," Hamlet said. "It's nearly night and it will get much colder before long. Share my bed for warmth."

Jack eyed the guy with the bushy hair and the weird glasses.

Hamlet caught his gaze. "Oh don't worry about Horatio! He won't mind."

Somehow Jack had doubts about that, but the guy didn't seem to be kicking up a fuss. Instead he and Hamlet embraced and then the guy went back to sit by the dying embers of the fire, wrapping himself in a thick coat.

Hamlet spread a checkered… something, that looked like a cross between a tablecloth and a bedcover on the sand, inviting Jack to join him.

Jack shuddered to think of the annual budget pathetic little Denmark must be forced to get by on.

*

Hamlet turned over in his sleep, blanket slipping lower and revealing a pale shoulder blade. To Jack's amazement, the skin was marked with a tattoo. He looked closer, eyes straining in the darkness, but there could be no mistake. It was the shape of a butterfly.

Jack reached out hesitantly and traced the outline with his fingertips. In the next moment he woke up in his own bed, his hand gripping the soft pillow, a vision of a butterfly taking flight still vivid behind his eyelids.


End file.
